TRADING standards officers had suspicious minds when they swooped on a shop displaying Elvis Presley T-shirts in its window.

About £200,000-worth of fake designer goods were on show inside.

They carried the names of brands such as Fred Perry, Lacoste and Giorgio Armani.

Coats, sunglasses, trainers, shorts, tracksuits and even golfing attire were on display at the shop in Lockett Street, Cheetham Hill, Manchester.

Closer examination revealed a hidden door leading to a back room containing a mini-workshop.

Machines to press labels had been set up, along with more than 30,000 tags bearing the names of brands such as Prada and Paul and Shark.

There were also a number of plain garments, waiting to have labels added.

The find could have kept goods worth hundreds of thousands of pounds off the streets.

From the outside, the shop looked like a souvenir store.

Alongside `The King', other `legitimate' T-shirts displaying tigers, horses and whales were hung up in its window.

Mike Roylance, from Adidas, said: "The stuff in the window was nonsense. They were fooling no one."

No arrests were made, but an investigation into who owns the shop is now under way.

The raid, backed by officials from firms including Stone Island, Adidas, Nike and Bench, was the latest in the war against the city's counterfeit traders. Last year, the M.E.N. revealed the city was regarded as the capital for fake goods.

In June, Nicola Bray, from Manchester's trading standards department and a team from Collyhurst police station received awards from the Anti-Counterfeiting Group.

Criminals are now thought to be using new methods to avoid detection.

Last month, we reported how customers were being directed away from shops to nearby storage units, where the goods were handed over.

Graham Consterdine, from Stone Island, said raids provided further evidence that even criminals were being hit by the credit crunch.

He said: "Times must be hard for them. We're finding a lot of the stuff now of an even poorer quality than before."